N revolting against the Union in 1860 the Southern States were greatly influenced by the expectation of substantial support from Europe, and especially from the large cotton-spinning powers of England and France. These states must have cotton or a famine- thus reasoned the Confederates; cotton they cannot have without both slavery and peace, therefore they will wink at slavery and will soon find a pretext for intervening in some form for peace, which, as most of them were sufficiently infatuated to believe, meant the independence of the South. It is not rash to say that but for the confident expectation of transatlantic aid the war would not have broken out when it did, if ever. The South was singularly unanimous in the conviction that cotton was king in Europe as well as in the United States, and that an interruption of its supply would be so serious in its consequences that a new republic, where cotton was to be king and slavery its cornerstone, would be welcomed into the family of nations as the surest possible guaranty against the recurrence of such a disaster.

For a time the theory gave promise of yielding the fruit expected of it. The idea had been quite successfully propagated in Europe during the earlier stages of the war that slavery had nothing to do with bringing it on, but that the Northern States were animated simply by a lust for power and territory, while the South were only defending their homes and families from ruthless invaders. Even Earl Russell went so far in one of his public utterances as to say as much, and that the subject of slavery was not to be taken into account by foreign statesmen in their dealings with the belligerents. The noble earl lived to change his opinion, and the Southern leaders discovered before the war closed that their most formidable enemy was this of their own household. They were made to realize, with a cruel distinctness, that, with a constitution and a public opinion which made slavery the one institution within their borders which was too sacred to be debated, the one institution which neither the VOL. XLII.-15-16.

people of the Confederate States nor their delegates in legislative assemblies or in national or State conventions could meddle with, they were fatally handicapped for the struggle in which they had embarked. They could not throw this Jonah into the sea, for it was their only pretext for rebellion; to retain it on board was inevitable shipwreck. The abolition of slavery meant peace and union at once, and, as a logical consequence, their success in war meant the perpetuation of slavery - that and nothing else. This in due time became apparent to the people of Europe, where the prejudices against chattel slavery were even stronger and more universal than in Massachusetts; nor could this conclusion fail to acquire control in the councils of the European powers-willing as they mostly were to see our Union go to pieces-the moment they began to look about for a plausible pretext for intervention. They found that in whatever direction they put out their hands to help the Confederates they became in spite of themselves the champions of slavery. This was inevitable, but its results the Southern people would not or could not see. They had an idea that the prejudice against slavery was confined pretty much to the puritans of New England and a few cranks of Exeter Hall. Having been brought up in the midst of it, it was incomprehensible to them, or at least to most of them, that a man of a sound mind should find anything revolting in the "peculiar institution."

In selecting John Slidell and James M. Mason as commissioners to further their interests abroad, the Confederates were also most unfortunate. The names of both were associated in Europe with every scheme for the nationalization of slavery that had been presented in Congress since the annexation of Texas.

Slidell while representing the State of Louisiana in the United States Senate was the counselor and abetter of the filibustering expeditions of Lopez in 1849 and 1859 for the wresting of Cuba from Spain, with a view to the enlargement of the area and political representation in Congress of the slaveholding States.

In December, 1857, Walker, with a band of filibusters, was captured by an American vessel of war under the command of Commodore

113

Paulding, just after landing at Punta Arenas on the coast of Nicaragua, of which state he purposed to take possession, having once before landed in Nicaragua with another force, whence, after a warlike occupation of some months, he was expelled. Soon after Commodore Paulding made his report to the government the political associates of Slidell in the House of Representatives, under his inspitation, made a report disapproving of the conduct of Commodore Paulding in arresting Walker and bringing him a prisoner to the United States. Through the same filibustering influences Paulding was threatened with censure, while Walker was not only not convicted, as he should have been, and dealt with as a pirate, but was allowed to go at large to plan other predatory schemes upon the peaceful neighbors of the United States, until arrested by the hand of Providence,1

It was through Slidell's influence that Soulé, abo of New Orleans, was sent out to bully Spam into the sale of Cuba to the United States, and with Buchanan, then our minister to EngLand, and John Y. Mason, then our minister to France, instructed to unite in the declaration of the conference at Ostend in 1854, that "the acquisition of Cuba was a political necenity for the United States, to be accomplished by whatever means, fair or foul, might

Move necesaty."

In the following session of Congress Slidell offered a resolution in the Senate directing the President of the United States to give notice to the European powers bound together under the treaty for the suppression of the slavetrade that after one year from date the United States would cease to be a party to that treaty, and would no longer maintain its quota of vessels upon the coast of Africa.

Failing to secure the adoption of this resolution by Congress, whereby he had contema reopening of the slave-trade, he and plated his partisans, using Mr. Buchanan, then President, as their instrument, bullied England into a practical renunciation of the right of visit and search of suspected slavers bearing the American flag, and into the admission that the flag alone was conclusive and final evidence of nationality.

The effect of this was that, during the succeeding twelve months, more than a hundred vessels were ascertained to have been fitted out and employed for the slave traffic, and not one convicted by the courts until the accession of Lincoln and the appointment of a new régime of prosecuting attorneys.

Slidell was also one of the parties who took a prominent part in securing the repeal of the 1 Reports of committees of the House of Representatives, Ist Session 35th Congress, Vol. I., 1857-58.

Missouri Compromise, by which it was intended to open all the Northwestern territory to slavery.

Not content with the impulse given to the African slave-trade by England's practical abandonment of the right of visit and search, in the session of 1858-59 Slidell introduced a bill to place $30,000,000 at the disposal of President Buchanan to be used in negotiating the purchase of Cuba.2

Mason was a party to all the measures for the extension of slavery that Slidell ever proposed or advocated. He was a member of the Senate committee on foreign relations and signed the report in favor of giving the President the $30,000,000 to bribe and traffic for Cuba, and in his speech, made the day the report was presented, reiterated the declaration of the Ostend conference, that "the acquisition of Cuba was for the United States a political necessity." 3

He was one of the authors of the fugitiveslave law of 1850, which made it a crime, punishable with fine and imprisonment, to harbor, feed, or give shelter to a fugitive slave, even in States where slavery was prohibited by law.

He was one of the inquisitors who besieged poor John Brown in his last hours to extort from him information by which other citizens of the North could be convicted of participating with him in the scheme for freeing the slaves in Virginia which cost him his life.

Mason, who was commissioned by the Confederates to represent them in England, had not been in London six months before the possibility of his being of any use to the cause he represented was at an end. Snubbed by Earl Russell, then Minister of Foreign Affairs, and only tolerated by Palmerston, then Premier, the question of recalling him was seriously considered as early as the fall of 1862. The average school-girl of sixteen was about as well qualified as Mason to cope with the bankers of London and Paris, the only foreign powers with which he seems to have had any intercourse or negotiations that amounted to anything. It is not easy to see how any minister, and least of all a minister of Mason's mental, not to say moral limitations, could earn his salary near a government that would not see him, nor pay any attention to anything he wrote, nor listen to anything he was instructed or inclined to say. To withdraw him from England at that time, however, and leave Slidell in France, who was already setting the eggs out of which it was expected a navy for the Confederate States was to be hatched, was attended with some inconvenience which Benjamin thought it better to avoid. Hence the following letters, the 2 Senate Doc., 2d Session 35th Congress, 1858-59. 3 "Congressional Globe," January 24, 1859, p. 538.

(No. 8.)

Benjamin to Mason.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, RICHMOND, 28th Oct., 1863. HON. JAMES M. MASON, etc., London. SIR... It is gratifying to perceive that you had, as was confidently anticipated, reviewed your impressions, and determined not to withdraw from London without the previous instructions of the President. Your correspondence with Earl Russell shows with what scant courtesy you have been treated, and exhibits a marked contrast between the conduct of the English and French statesmen now in office in the intercourse with foreign agents eminently discreditable to the former. It is lamentable that at this late period in the nineteenth century a nation so enlightened as Great Britain should have failed yet to discover that a principal cause of dislike and hatred towards England, of which complaints are rife in her Parliament and in her press, is the offensive arrogance of some of her public men. The contrast is striking between the polished courtesy of M. Thouvenel1 and the rude incivility of Earl Russell. Your determination to submit to the annoyances in the service of your country, and to overlook personal slights while hope remains that your continued presence in England may benefit our cause, cannot fail to meet the warm approval of your government. I refrain, however, from further comments on the contents of your despatches till the attention of the President (now concentrated on efforts to repair the ill effects of the failure of the Kentucky campaign) can be directed to your correspondence with Earl Russell.

I am, sir, your obdt. servt.,
J. P. BENJAMIN, Secretary of State.
Benjamin to Slidell.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, RICHMOND, January 15, 1863. HON. JOHN SLIDELL, etc., Paris. SIR... It is not to be denied that there is great and increasing irritation in the public mind on this side in consequence of our unjust treatment by foreign powers, and it will require all the influence of the President to prevent some explosion and to maintain that calm and selfcontained attitude which is alone becoming in such circumstances. We should probably not be very averse to the recall of Mr. Mason, who has been discourteously treated by Earl Russell, were it not that such a step would have so marked a significance while you remain at Paris as would probably cause serious interference with the success of the preparations, now nearly completed, for the purchase of the articles so much needed in the further prosecution of the war. If the re

1 It is a curious coincidence that on the very day that Benjamin was commending to Mason the "polished courtesy of M. Thouvenel" Slidell in Paris was writing to Benjamin an account of his first interview with Drouyn de Lhuys, and saying, "After the first interchange of courtesies, I said that I had been pleased to hear from various quarters that I should not have

the terrible slaughter of his troops at Fredericksburg prove insufficient to secure our recognition, the continued presence of our agents abroad can only be defended or excused on the ground that the necessities of our position render indispensable the supplies which we draw from Europe, and which would perhaps be withheld if we gave manifestation of our indignation at the unfair treatment which we have received.

I am respectfully, etc.,

J. P. BENJAMIN, Secretary of State.

As already intimated, the two men who were sent abroad to negotiate European alliances for the Confederate States, more than any other two men in all our republic, incarnated everything that was most intolerant, aggressive, and offensive in the institution of slavery. With them slavery was not a disorderly social condition to be tolerated only for its incidental conveniences, or for the grave inconveniences of exterminating it, but an institution to be admired, cultivated, and propagated for its intrinsic merits and fitness. The fame of their opinions had gone before them all over the world. As a matter of course they had not been long in Europe before they were brought to book. Mr. Mason got his first lesson at a dinner at Lord Donoughmore's, a thoroughpaced old Tory and ready for anything that would contribute to bring the American republic to grief. Here is Mason's account of this lesson in a confidential note to his chief, The sentiments of the hard-hearted old peer were so shockingly philanthropical that Mason made his communication "unofficial," doubting the propriety of allowing such heresies to go upon the files of the Confederate Department of State.

(Unofficial.)

Mason to Benjamin.

24 UPPER SEYMOUR STREET, PORTMAN SQUAre, LONDON, November 4, 1862. DEAR SIR: The contents of this note I have thought had better be unofficial, and thus not to go on the files of the department, unless you should think otherwise; and yet the matter, it seems to me, should at once be brought under the consideration of the President, that we may be ready when the time arrives.

I have the strongest reason to believe, when, after recognition, we shall come to the negotiation of the ordinary treaty of "amity and commerce," this Government will require, as a sine qua non, the introduction of a clause stipulating against the African slave-trade. Although I well

to combat with him the adverse sentiments that had been attributed to his predecessor in the Department of Foreign Affairs (M. Thouvenel), with what degree of truth I did not permit myself to appreciate."

2 Donoughmore's name is recorded as a subscriber for ten of the bonds of the Confederate cotton loan.

ine scronacity of England on that subject, Sau supposed that the voluntary act of the Orcuerda States Government, inhibiting this Take by dre chaciment of the constitution when overnment was first established, would sasded Ingiand to be passive at least hercourse with us. I have now Cosed to appredend the contrary. cways sace I dined with Lord Donloves who was president of the board of eace Derby administration, and he same, or a higher office, should vio come din into power-a very intelvec jende diad, and a warm and earnest friend PC South In the course of conversation, stuck, the subject came up incidentally, wide we were done, and he said I might be satold Palmerston would not enter into Crowd with us, unless we agreed in such treaty sexe Count the Prican slave trade. I expressed 15 se tot, retening to the fact that we had vesh se kilnitted that prohibition into the vvaantood of the Confederate States, thereby Xp ww ground against the slave-trade akicave A taken by the United States; De 'acer it was only prohibited by law ye sormier not only was the power withFood Coagres, but the legislative branch Je government was required to pass such aw & mort edectually prevent it.

SO WEX (hat was all well understood, but that tand the gập xupment of England on this sub3 moister could hold his place for a da 15, Bould negotiate a treaty with any Mac Polycamng such a clause; nor

"

could

yose of Commons be found which would 44 muster thus delinquent, and he reroad to the fact (as he alleged it to be) that in Vacay existing treaty with England that prohibiwax contamed. He said, further, that he did Hot Misan to express his individual opinions, but that he was equally satisfied, should the Palmeron muustry go out, and the Tories come in, such would likewise be their necessary policy; and he added that he was well assured that EngLand and France would be in accord on that

subject

I told him, in reply, that I feared this would form a formidable obstacle, if persisted in, to any treaty; that he must be aware that on all questions affecting African servitude our government was naturally and necessarily sensitive, when presented by any foreign power. We had learned nom abundant experience that the antislavery sentiment was always aggressive; that this con

dition of society was one with which, in our opinon, the destinies of the South were indissolubly connected; that as regarded foreign powers, it was with us a question purely domestic, with which our safety required that none such should in any manner interfere; that, of course, I had no special instructions on the subject, but I thought I knew both the views of our government and people; and that (to express it in no stronger term) it would be a most unfortunate thing if England should make such a stipulation a sine qua non to a treaty. I said, further, that I presumed it might be averted, by recognizing mutually the fact that

such a stipulation was not properly germane to a treaty purely commercial; and thus to be laid over as a subject for future negotiation, if pressed. He still maintained as his belief, that no matter who might be in power, it would be insisted on in the first treaty to be formed.

A few days afterwards Mr. Seymour Fitzgerald, passing through town, came to see me. I had known him very well, and during the late session of Parliament had seen a good deal of him. He is a man of ability and influence, was Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs in the Derby administration, and will take the place of Lord Russell, it is supposed, should the Conservatives again come into power; and he, too, is an earnest and sincere friend of our cause."

I told him of my conversation with Lord Donoughmore, and of my surprise at the opinion he entertained. I regret to say that Mr. Fitzgerald coincided fully with Lord D. in these opinions, not as his own, but as those which must govern any ministry in England.

We shall therefore have this question to meet, I take for granted, at the time and in the manner suggested.

I do not ask for any definite instructions in regard to it, but only bring it thus unofficially to the notice of the President and yourself. Very respectfully and truly yours, HON. J. P. BENJAMIN. J. M. MASON.

Mason professes surprise at the nature of the conditions which his Tory friends assured him must form a part of any treaty with the Confederate States to which the Queen's signature could be attached, but it is far more surprising that any American statesman who had reached his age could have needed that information. But the way in which the Confederate diplomatist sought to turn this obstacle was even more surprising still. He says to this representative of a nation of abolitionists that "the antislavery sentiment was always aggressive"; "that this condition of [Southern] society [with slaves] was one with which . . . the destinies of the South were indissolubly connected"; and, finally, that it was a question purely domestic, with which no foreign power could with safety interfere. To understand the effect of such language upon any representative Englishman we should try to imagine the moral effect upon the American Antislavery Society of the late fire-eater Toombs attempting to call the roll of his negroes on Bunker Hill.

At the very time that Lord Donoughmore was saying check to the slavery apostolate in London, Jefferson Davis was receiving what should have been regarded as a more impressive warning from a source that could not be suspected of sentimentalism. Among the agents sent out to Europe at the beginning of the war was William L. Yancey of Alabama, who had sought and fairly won the

reputation of being the champion fire-eater of the country, and who contributed the only piece of pro-slavery rhetoric that seems likely to survive the rebellion, in proclaiming at its beginning the necessity of "firing the Southern heart." The object of his mission, in conjunction with Dudley Mann, was to take advantage of the reverse sustained by the Union army at Bull Run to secure the prompt recognition of the Confederacy by England and France. He returned in a few months, running the blockade at Sabine Pass. "When he arrived in New Orleans," said my informant, who saw him and from whom I had the facts I am about to recite, "he was the most broken-up, demoralized, and wretched-looking man I ever saw." He went to the St. Charles Hotel, then kept by Mr. Hildreth, afterwards manager of the New York Hotel, and immediately sent for William E. Stark and Pierre Soulé. The latter from being a noisy Unionist had been persuaded, by his appointment to the office of Provost Marshal, to fly the colors of the Confederacy. To escape observation and interruption, Yancey, Hildreth, Stark, and Soulé then went out to a restaurant to dine. While absent it leaked out in some way that Yancey had returned and was at the St. Charles, so that when the party returned they found the large domed reception hall of the hotel thronged with people, who no sooner recognized Yancey than they called upon him to address them. He reluctantly mounted the structure which occupies the center of the hall under the dome, "appearing to be the very embodiment of disappointment and despair." He said in substance that he did not bring them glad tidings from over the sea; that Queen Victoria was against them and that Prince Albert was against them. "Gladstone we can manage," he said, "but the feeling against slavery in England is so strong that no public man there dares extend a hand to help us. We have got to fight the Washington Government alone. There is no government in Europe that dares help us in a struggle which can be suspected of having for its result, directly or indirectly, the fortification or perpetuation of slavery. Of that I am certain."

In a day or two Yancey left for Richmond, where he is presumed to have made substantially the same report to the Confederate authorities. He died in about ten days after his arrival. His information, which deserved to be heeded, and if heeded would have led to negotiations which would have promptly led to a termination of the war, had about as much effect upon the lunatics at Richmond as reading the riot act or the Ten Commandments would have upon a pack of wolves. They knew not the time of their visitation.

While Mr. Benjamin and President Davis were chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancies suggested to their English commissioner by his Tory friends as well as by their own agent, a gentleman from Florida had proposed to Mr. Benjamin that the slaves should be drafted into the army and compelled to fight for the deliverance of their masters from the chains of the old Federal Constitution. To this proposition Mr. Benjamin wrote a reply which for its length is certainly one of the most important contributions ever made to the literature of slavery.

Among those who have never enjoyed the advantage of studying the "peculiar institution" in situ, this letter is likely to beget a suspicion that the affection of slaves for their masters, and for the relation in which they stood the one to the other, have been somewhat exaggerated by the slaveholding apostolate.

The extent to which the conversion of a man into a slave reduced his value as a national asset in the time of war or civil disorder - was it ever better stated or more effectively illustrated?

Benjamin to B. H. Micon.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, RICHMOND, August 18, 1863. BENJAMIN H. MICON, Esq., Tallahassee, Fla. DEAR SIR: I have received and carefully read your letter of 10th instant. It is a subject which has awakened attention in several quarters lately, and which is of an importance too great to admit of its proper treatment within the limits of a letter, nor have I at this moment the time necessary for discussing it at length. With many and obvious advantages, such as you suggest in your letter, there are very grave practical difficulties in the execution of any general scheme of employing negro slaves in the army.

You know, of course, in the first place, that scheme that it must be devised and matured the President has no authority to initiate such a by Congress. Whether Congress would advise it I know not, but let me suggest hastily a few of the difficulties.

Ist. Slaves are property; if taken for public service, they must be paid for. At present rates each regiment of 1000 slaves would cost $2,000,000, at the very least, besides their outfit, and

the government would become a vast slaveholder, and must either sell the slaves after the war, which would be a most odious proceeding after they had aided us in gaining our liberties, or must free them, to the great detriment of the country.

2d. If instead of buying, the government hire them, it would stand as insurer for their return to their owners; it would be forced to pay hire for them besides their outfit and rations; and it would have to pay hire according to the value of their services on a fair estimate. Now negro men command readily $30 a month all through Virginia. How could we possibly afford such a price, and what would be the effect on the poorer classes of whites in the army, if informed that negroes were